Thank You, John Moses Browning

Today is the centennial of the War Department's adoption of the the Caliber .45, Colt Model 1911 automatic pistol. It replaced the Colt, Model 1901, Caliber .38 Revolver and the Colt, Model 1909, Caliber .45 Revolver shown below.

Colt Model 1901

Colt Model 1909

The semi-automatic pistol submitted by Colt and designed by John M. Browning bested the design submitted by Savage Arms and was adopted on March 29, 1911. The rest, as they say, is history.

UPDATE: To read about the Model 1911 that wasn't - in other words, the Savage submission, go here. There is an excellent article about it.